You're quite right Phantom, absolutely right. I was forgetting my chemistry. You need carbon bonded with O2, as in coal, so it can burn and provide the heat of combustion for the metallurgical or chemical process. 

But your reply made me think, and I don't know the answer, perhaps you do.

The QRR uses coal to dissociate the O2 from SiO2 using the heat from the plasma torch. Coal itself doesnt provide the heat, so what does it do? CO would be produced along with CO2, does the CO remove the O from the SiO2?